Christmas Past

Yesterday, Norris and Cheryl went to the Zebulon Vance Birthplace, the State Historic Site about a mile from our house. Zebulon Vance was a wit and politician who started as a pro-Unionist, but when NC seceded, he organized a regiment and later -- still during the Civil War -- served as very popular Governor. His father David Vance was one of the original American Revolutionary land grant owners in the Reems Creek Valley.

Every year the staff decorates the house for Christmas and hosts candlelight tours. We thought we'd get there before it got too dark to take pictures. The weather was on the frightful side yesterday, with some freezing rain earlier in the day, so we didn't count on a crowd, but we were wrong.

While we waited for our tour at the Visitors Center, we watched some of the local Junior Tarheel Historians at their crafts -

Weaving "tapes" at small table looms -

Spinning and spool knitting -

Most of the Jr. Historians were young ladies wearing fur trimmed wool capes, but there was one young man busy weaving, visible in the coonskin hat in the above photo.

We also heard the local group Primrose playing Christmas music on harp, two mountain dulcimers and (we think) two psalteries.

It was very dark by the time our guide took a group of twenty of us to the Vance house to see if they had room for twenty travelers to stay for the night. The guides were all reenactors, who took our plight very seriously on a cold night. They let us warm up by the fire where we were told about mountain Christmas decorating traditions -


...and the cook told us about the dishes she and Mrs. Vance had been making -

We were not allowed to use flash during the tours. It is very dark at night in a log cabin lit with only the fires and a few candles, so we were surprised these pictures came out at all - the shutter probably remained open for 3-4 seconds and we had no tripod with us. The people were moving and look like the Ghosts of Christmas Past.